Saura Hereditas (2020) 157:48 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41065-020-00161-x REVIEW Open Access Race biology Anssi Saura Abstract Background: The founders of Hereditas envisioned that race biology would be a major subject that had social applications with utmost importance in the near future. Anthropometrics was in this context understood to be the pure and eugenics the applied science. Sweden had a long tradition in physical anthropometry. Herman Lundborg, member of the advisory board of Hereditas, united the anthropometric and eugenic approaches in a synthesis. He was the first head of the Institute for Race Biology in Sweden. The contents of Hereditas reflect the development of race biology in the Nordic countries. Conclusions: The initial enthusiasm for applied race biology did not last long. In the 1920’s Hereditas carried papers on both physical anthropology and eugenics. Most paper dealt, however, with human genetics without eugenic content. Two papers, published in 1921 and 1939 show how the intellectual climate had changed from positive to negative. Finally only human genetics prevailed as the legitimate study of the human race or humankind. A belated defense of eugenics published in 1951 did not help; geneticists had abandoned anthropometrics for good around the year 1940 and eugenics about a decade later. In spite of that, eugenic legislation was amended astonishingly late, in the 1970’s. The development was essentially similar in all Nordic countries. Keywords: anthropometrics, eugenics, sterilization, Hereditas Background Race biology stands for biological anthropology with A race is a population distinguishable from other popu- eugenics as an applied approach. In the Nordic countries lations by hereditary phenotypic characters. Members of the two make up a temporal sequence so that anthropo- a human race may freely produce offspring with repre- logical measurements came first, followed with the social sentatives of other races. Even if race has been socially aspect. constructed [1], it has been an immensely powerful con- Linnaeus had in Systema naturae divided humanity struction that has shaped the lives of millions. Restric- into four differentiated groups using geographic but tions based on geography, skin color, language, culture otherwise arbitrary criteria. A systematic research on and religion have been imposed to maintain groups of race was begun in Sweden in the 1840’s. The father of people as endogamous units. The Indian caste system anthropometrics is Anders Rezius (1796–1869), who may have been the most extreme effort of social control took measures on Sámi (Lapps) [3, 4] . He introduced of human reproduction [2]. Segregation in the American craniometry, the study of skull dimensions, and coined south, apartheid in South Africa, aristocratic societies terms such as dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, long- and prejudices represent less brazen attempts of social and short-skulled, respectively. His work led to a revi- control. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was sion of race classification in Europe. Gustaf Retzius drafted to abolish the above practices. (1842–1919) followed his father as an anthropologist. He was interested in the three races of Sweden: Nordic, Finnish and Sámi (Lapps). The Nordics were in general Correspondence: [email protected] dolichocephalic, the Sámi brachycephalic and the Finns Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Saura Hereditas (2020) 157:48 Page 2 of 12 intermediate between the two. Typical Sámi were seen a collection of photos and paintings showing Swedes to- to have a short stature and dark hair [5], while the gether with Sámi, deviant types and criminals. The ex- Swedes and Finns were tall and had fair hair. Retzius jr. planatory text included the elements of genetics. Starting was, in particular, keen to measure Finnish skulls, [6]. from Stockholm and Uppsala, the exhibition toured sev- The giant volume titled Anthropologia Suecica [7] sums eral towns in 1919. It was an all-time success that up the accumulated results of 60 years. In retrospect, it attracted more than 50% of the adult population in many is difficult to make out why this immoderate compilation cities [14]. That is no wonder: Anders Zorn specialized in of data was collected. It was certainly used to promote painting nude blond maidens displaying their charms in ideas of the pre-eminence of the “superior dolicocephalic lush lakeside etc. settings. race” e.g. [8]. Given this alleged superiority of the Nordic race, posi- Hereditas tive measures had to be taken not only to preserve it at Herman Nilsson-Ehle, the plant breeder of international the degree of purity then attained and, if feasible, to im- fame, was the driving force in the founding of the Men- prove the positive and desirable and weed out the nega- delian Society in Lund in 1910 and, ten years later, in tive characteristics. Herman Lundborg extended the setting up its journal Hereditas. He was involved in vir- work of Retzius and Fürst [7] into a medical dimension. tually everything that was done to further the progress He [9] defended in 1903 a doctoral dissertation on myo- of genetics in Sweden between the years 1910 and 1935 clonus epilepsy or Unverricht-Lundborg disease. Lund- [15–17]. To secure a financial base for a genetics journal borg used pedigrees extracted from church records to the Mendelian Society sent an appeal to Swedish patrons find out the lines of descent and the transmission of the of science and culture. The tone of the appeal, signed disease. His thesis represented a new and useful ap- by Herman Nilsson-Ehle, president, and Carl August proach in the study of heritable diseases. Lundborg was Hallqvist, secretary general, was patriotic. They stressed rewarded with accolades including the prize of the the significance of genetics in plant breeding and applied Swedish Medical Society. The recognition encouraged race biology; the plant breeding institutions of Svalöf and him to extend the study beyond strict human genetics. Weibullsholm were taken up by name. Race biology has In a follow-up study comprising an extended family with social applications that will be of utmost importance in 2232 members Lundborg [10] not only demonstrated the near future. If diseases and traits are found to have a the inheritance of the epilepsy but, in addition, contro- genetic basis, then the society should respond through ap- versial evidence for degeneration that expressed itself as propriate measures. Financial utility is less important than alcoholism and debauchery. Cousin marriages had exac- the control of asocial behavior etc. Evidently a critical and erbated the misfortune. Lundborg recommended that strictly scientific treatment is needed here [16, 17]. eugenic measures should be applied to cure the afflicted Herman Lundborg was elected member of the advisory family. The result was a giant volume (35.5 × 28× 5.5 cm, board of Hereditas from almost the very beginning. Heredi- 740 pages). In addition to his own data, he described the tas was envisioned to be a publishing forum for Nordic ge- racial characters of the Swedish people following Retzius neticists so that Swedes, and authors of PhD theses in and Fürst [10]. particular, were given priority, but if space allowed, contri- The Swedish Society for Race Biology (Svenska Sällska- butions from other Nordic countries were included. pet för Rashygien) was established in the autumn of 1909 in Stockholm. Rashygien,“race hygiene”, is a German and Applied race biology Nordic synonym for eugenics, albeit with some anti- Theodore M Porter [18] has pointed out that physicians Semitic overtones [11]. The society had a lofty aim: “to and state officials tasked with overseeing insane asylums support efforts to improve the health of the body and throughout the nineteenth century attempted to under- mind in the future generations”. The evolutionary biolo- stand the nature and origins of madness. They were the gist Wilhelm Leche was the chairman and the Nobel Prize precursors of pedigree research and eugenics. winner (chemistry) Svante Arrhenius the most prominent In the first half of the twentieth century eugenics was member of the executive board. Herman Lundborg a legitimate branch of applied genetics. Negative eugenics emerged as an active advocate for race biology. Together strove to lower the frequency of detrimental traits. Indi- with the zoologist Nils von Hofsten, the psychiatrist Elis viduals expressing them could be counseled to refrain Essen-Möller and the plant breeder Herman Nilsson-Ehle from marrying. As an alternative, they could be steril- he created a network to promote eugenic consciousness ized. To protect the society at large, mentally disabled [12, 13]. The race biologists set out publishing popular persons or criminals could be sterilized or castrated booklets to educate the public and began lobbying for a against their will. Positive eugenics recommended various national institute for race biology.